Beslan Suspects Killed In Russian Raid

4 March 2005 -- Russian authorities say a police raid has ended in the deaths of five people suspected of aiding in the seizing of a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, last September.

Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said in a statement today that four men were arrested in the raid.

His statement said five suspects were killed while resisting arrest. He did not say when or where the raid took place.

Shepel said police suspect the men helped stage the hostage taking in which assailants held more than 1,000 hostages for three days before the siege ended in gunfire and explosions that killed 330 people, nearly half of them children.

Shepel said the suspects are also accused of involvement in an attack on police facilities in Russia's southern region of Ingushetia near Chechnya in June, in which about 90 people were killed.